How low can the Jazz go this season?

Utah Jazz center Enes Kanter dunks against the Los Angeles Lakers during the first half on Oct. 22.

Last week we talked about how the 2013-14 season, starting tomorrow night with the Jazz hosting OKC, is going to be a honest-to-goodness rebuilding year for Utah. That leads to the question, just how much of a rebuilding year do you want the Jazz to have? To put it another way - is this a rebuilding project that tears things down to the ground floor, or do you want to go all the way down to re-doing the foundation?

It's one thing to have a rebuilding season where you go 30-52 and see flashes of brilliance from the young guys and you're committed to the core of guys you already have as you move forward. It's quite another to go 18-64 and you're looking at getting rid of just about everybody to build around a No. 1 or 2 overall draft pick next summer.

There are plusses and minuses to both approaches. When it comes to really bottoming out, the 2014 draft is supposed to be loaded with one-and-done college players like Andrew Wiggins (Kansas), Jabari Parker (Duke) and Julius Randle (Kentucky) considered to be can't-miss prospects.

The problem with this approach is that, perverse as it might sound, it could be tough to be one of the two or three worst teams in the NBA this year given that the 76ers have the chance to be historically bad and Phoenix and Orlando seem committed to fully bottoming out.

On the other hand, let's say that in the next several months Derrick Favors, Gordon Hayward and Enes Kanter all show signs of being top-notch players who can carry the team forward. That's a nice situation, particularly if you've got all three locked into extended contracts. The Jazz are at least part-way there with that approach, having just signed Favors to a deal that will pay him in the neighborhood of $50 million from 2014-2018.

(Quick side note - despite my pledge not to focus on the debacle that was the last two years for the Jazz, I can't help but ask - if Jazz management and coaching knew that a 22-year-old deserved an eight-figures-a-year contract, why weren't they playing him more than 23 minutes a night last season?)

Utah is said to be in similar contract talks to try to lock up Hayward beyond this season, and it sounds like he's going to be in the same financial neighborhood with Favors. That could mean that Favors and Hayward alone are eating up about one-third of the salary cap. Let's say that Kanter looks good this year and you want to contract with him on similar terms. Now you've got three guys eating up about half of your cap space, which means you've decided they are going to be the trio you're going to build around with various role players.

But is that a trio that can win you championships? None of those guys is a top-three-in-the-league talent that the majority of championship teams in the 21st century have had. As much as we might love Derrick, Enes and Gordon, and all three could rise to be top-20 players in the league, it's hard to see any of them rising to the level of LeBron, Kobe, Dirk or Shaq.

It's possible to win a championship without a top-three-in-the-league guy. Witness the 2004 Pistons and 2008 Celtics, and the Pacers were oh-so-close to doing it last spring.

However, those were the exceptions to the rule. Eleven of the other 12 championship teams in the 21st century (the 12th being the 2006 Heat who did not win a title, but had one rewarded to them by officiating that makes you wonder if Tim Donaghy acted alone) have been led by somebody who will go down as one of the all-time greats. When the Jazz made the finals twice in the late 90s, Karl Malone was one of the three best players in the league.

Are you banking on a trio of guys you've already got, or do you really want to tank this year and go for somebody that could be the greatest Jazzman since the Mailman? It's a tough choice that will play itself out between now and mid-April.